


(break me) like a promise

by pendules



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 21:11:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2403032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendules/pseuds/pendules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis lives in a sleepy college town, helping his mum taking care of his sisters. Harry's just started school and is working part-time at a bakery he frequents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(break me) like a promise

**Author's Note:**

> That summary is a really simplified version of this. It started with [Taylor Swift's _All Too Well_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzJlpnBaJyw) but deviated greatly. Basically, this is about music, pastry, small towns, loneliness, with a dash of daddy issues and a lot of learning how to let go (and when not to).
> 
> The soundtrack can be found [here](http://retorico.livejournal.com/61997.html#cutid1). All the songs referenced in this can be found at the end. (Some are on the soundtrack and some aren't. For reasons.)

_september_

Louis hates Septembers. Well, he kind of hates _this_ September more than most others. (He actually really loves the start of fall, the summer heat breaking, the morning chills heralding sweater weather finally being here; it's the end of some things but the start of others too.) Because the girls are back at school and Zayn's at uni across the country and Louis's working two jobs and feeling lonelier than he ever has. Also, a bit lost. Of course, he'd never let anyone on to that.

Actually, the thing he really hates are the uni kids overrunning his peaceful, little town again. The one he's had to himself all summer. And the freshmen are the worst, obviously. He hates them all and their dumb, preppy clothes and their posh accents and stupid hairstyles and hipster glasses. Hates, hates, _hates_. He's pretty sure they're just going to school here ironically anyway.

He wishes he just didn't have to go out in public and see them, but they're always coming into the record store he works at during the day and sometimes at the restaurant he waits tables at a couple nights a week (and this is the worst because he has to suck it up and smile and pretend he doesn't want to smash their douchey faces in) and he has to run errands for his mum on the weekends and take the girls out to the shops and they're fucking _everywhere_ all the time. It's a losing battle, really.

In retrospect though, maybe he should be grateful. Really, really grateful.

*

He's picking up cupcakes for the twins' class when he meets him for the first time.

He sees the back of his head first. He's coming through the door to the kitchen, precariously holding an obviously dangerously hot tray of cookies, his task made even more difficult by the fact that he's apparently not learnt how to use his particularly gangly limbs yet. 

He finally sets it down on the counter with an exhale of relief and turns to Louis, tugging off his oven mittens. A smile replaces his apprehensive expression so quickly that it's frankly kind of terrifying. 

"Hi, can I help you?"

He's wearing an apron with a huge red heart on it over a blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Worse yet, there's a yellow smiley-face sticker stuck to his name tag (which says 'Harry' in big, loopy letters). He's never seen him before today. And Louis works in the service industry too, and he's never seen anyone so happy about it, so he figures this guy has to be new.

"You must be new."

"Yeah, I started this week. I'm Harry." 

"Yeah, I got that," he says, pointing to his name tag.

Harry laughs for no discernible reason.

So, yeah, it's not hard to tell, based on his posh accent and how brand-spanking-new to town he seems, that he's a student. And a freshman at that.

It's weird, though, he doesn't seem to be like any of the other students who get part-time jobs during the semester in town. For one, he's not on his iPhone while he ignores customers and generally does nothing useful at all. Most of the time, they're just rich kids looking to show mummy and daddy that _Hey, I can be self-sufficient if I want to be_. Usually, they end up quitting or getting fired within two weeks. 

Harry, on the other hand, seems attentive and cheerful and capable (when his awkward limbs aren't getting in the way, anyway). Louis really wants to hate him on the spot anyway.

"Anyway," he starts. "I'm picking up an order -"

"Oh, right. Twenty-five red velvet cupcakes, right?"

Apparently Louis was right. He knows what he's doing.

"Yeah," Louis says, giving him his first real smile. "Here's the receipt."

"Cool. Just give me a sec."

He disappears back into the kitchen. 

He's back in two minutes, holding a white box. He sets it down on the counter and pops it open for Louis to take a look at the cupcakes iced with shockingly pink designs and flowers.

"Awesome colour, mate," he says, and Louis doesn't know if he's teasing him or not.

"They're for my sisters," he says evenly.

"Cool," is all Harry replies.

He closes the box, picks it up, and says, "Well, thanks," as he turns to leave.

"Have a nice day, Louis," Harry says, smile even impossibly brighter.

He wonders for a moment how he knows his name, then remembers it was on the receipt.

"You too," he says, kind of in a daze, before he steps out the door, bell ringing behind him.

*

He really doesn't expect to see him so soon after that. But, then again, it's a small town.

He comes into the shop with this blonde boy during one of the least busy times of the day. He doesn't even notice them at first as they check out the displays, but then the blonde guy says really loudly, "Oi, where's the rap section?" Louis' head jerks up and he sees them walking up to the counter, like a study in opposites: Harry with his hands in the pockets of his black pea coat, suede shoes and hair artfully tousled, and the blonde guy in too-baggy jeans and a snapback and a sweater that says 'SKOOL SUCKS' that's such a cliché that Louis' eyes almost roll out of his head.

"Umm, over there," he says, pointing. 

"Cheers, mate," he says, before leaving them there.

"So, uh, hi...again," Harry starts, looking nervous for no apparent reason. 

"Hey," Louis says lamely.

"So you work here..."

"Yep." 

"That's cool. I always wanted to work in a record shop. It seems like fun."

"Yeah, usually it's a non-stop rave in here. You guys caught us at a rare quiet time."

Harry laughs, then grows quiet again. He puts his hands on the edge of the counter like he's not sure what to do with them.

"Your watch is broken," Louis points out.

"It was my dad's," he says, almost like a reflex. He adjusts it on his wrist, self-consciously, looking down. Louis catches a glimpse of the tattooed words peeking out from under it.

The new Passion Pit album is on in the store (not really his style usually but Zayn had recommended it on recommendation from one of his new hipster uni buddies), and the song changes then, and it's _Constant Conversations_ , and Louis kind of hates this song because it's too beautiful and it hurts too much. But maybe all the best things are like that.

"I love this song," Harry says, brightening. "You can really hear it - his pain, I mean." He trails off like he thinks he's said too much, looking away again.

And Harry can't _really_ relate, can he? Obviously he's from some rich family with a really nice house who vacation in Spain every summer of something. Maybe he's just the tortured artist type who manufactures his own pain. Louis's met too many people like that. But looking at him, really looking, behind the pretty face and the expensive clothes, Louis sees something else entirely. 

Louis wants to know all kinds of stupid things, like what his favourite cereal is and what the tattoo on his wrist means and if he's ever been hurt so badly that he didn't know how to pick up the pieces.

Louis's never been good at showing any scars at the surface. Maybe Harry's hiding things too though. Maybe self-inflicted scars hide his real ones somewhere deep below. Maybe the ink covers up his soul instead of revealing it.

"So, uh, were you looking for anything?" Louis says eventually.

"Oh, no, I just told Niall I'd buy him whatever he wanted for his birthday."

"I feel like you're going to be stuck in here a long time."

"Yeah..."

Niall eventually picks something out (and of course it's _Katy Perry_ ). Louis's ringing them up when Harry says, "Oh, this is Louis by the way."

"What's the craic, mate?" is all Niall responds and Louis has to admit that, okay, he totally likes this guy.

"You should check this out," Louis says, sliding the new Two Door Cinema Club over to Harry. "I think you'll like it."

"Okay," is all Harry says. Like he trusts him, trusts him without even knowing him at all.

He thinks about it after he leaves: _I can't change_. He wonders if it's an apology, a reminder, a warning...

Louis doesn't know how to change either. Maybe that's always been the problem.

He texts Zayn when he gets home: _this hilarious dudebro came in today, seems like a decent guy tho_

 _lol i miss that_ , is all Zayn says. It's almost _I miss you_ and maybe that's enough.

*

He doesn't even know what compels him to stop. It's just, the light's on, which is weird and Louis's walked this route so many times at this hour on his way home from work that anything even the slightest bit out of the ordinary raises red flags. He peers into the bakery through the glass door, rubbing some of the fog away. And it's - well, it's Harry. He's sitting alone at one of the tables, surrounded by books and empty coffee cups, but he's just staring off into space and chewing on the end of his pen. It's funny, how normal it is, but it feels kind of wrong too. Like he doesn't really belong here either.

Maybe that's what makes him tap on the glass before he can stop and make himself walk away.

Harry looks up, startled, but his expression changes quickly when he sees him. 

He gets up to open the door and just casually goes back to his seat when he lets him in, almost like he was expecting him or something.

"I saw the light on," he says.

Harry just nods distractedly.

"What are you studying?" he says, figuring he should sit down and stop acting like a freak.

"Medieval history. It's terribly exciting." Louis doesn't know if he's joking or not; apparently that's a thing with him.

"Can't you study in the library or something?"

"Too many people," he says simply.

"Oh, do you want me to go?"

"No, it's fine. You don't count."

Louis gives him a quizzical look.

"I mean - you're not a stranger."

 _I'm not?_ he almost says, but maybe that's rude. He's not sure why he cares exactly, why it matters so much what this boy thinks of him, this boy he met only a few weeks ago and can't stop thinking about.

He's just wearing a Pink Floyd t-shirt now, sleeves rolled up and it's the first time he gets a real look at his tattoos. There doesn't seem to be any kind of pattern, no method to the madness, really. Louis doesn't know if that's a good thing, not yet anyway.

Harry notices him looking but he doesn't try to hide it.

"You like permanent things, do you?" Louis asks, the words just coming to the surface of their own volition.

"No, not really. I think I'm just impulsive," he suggests, smile mischievous.

"I bet you are."

"What about you?" he asks. "Do you have any?"

"No," Louis says shaking his head. "I don't think anything's ever meant enough."

"Really?" He sounds like he's surprised.

What he meant to say was _Nothing's ever lasted long enough_. Everything means something, means too much sometimes. Letting it go is always better than remembering, but Louis remembers too much as it is.

"Maybe you'll find something soon," Harry says.

Louis doesn't even know what to do with that.

"So, did you like the album?" he says quickly.

"Yeah, it's really good. _Settle_ is probably my favourite. 'Romantic and drenched in sin,'" he quotes, shrugging.

Louis wonders why he's so fascinated by self-destruction. Maybe the people who are are the ones who could never really accomplish it, the ones who are too hopeful, the ones who care too much, the ones who feel too much and wish they didn't.

It's easier, really, than admitting you don't know what the right thing is anymore.

Maybe Louis' skin is clean but his thoughts aren't. Running away is easy as long as you don't look back, but Louis's never known how to do either.

Harry hasn't asked him anything yet, about what his plans are, if he's going to go to uni, and maybe he won't. Louis actually doesn't know what he'll say if he does. He tells people he's on a gap year; maybe it's the truth, maybe it's just his life now.

"Hey, you want coffee or something? There's probably leftover cookies too..."

"No, I should, uh, I should probably get home."

"Oh, okay," he says, looking slightly crestfallen. Louis's probably imagining it though.

"You should, I don't know, come over for dinner sometime," he says in a rush. And it's probably weird and crazy, and Harry probably thinks _he's_ weird and crazy too, but Harry's new in town and Louis hasn't really _talked_ to anyone like this in a long while. He hopes it's not obvious how achingly, hopelessly lonely he is, with all his friends scattered around the country, only his kid sisters for company, even grateful for rude fucking customers if they at least acknowledge his existence. Louis's never done well on his own, never thought he'd really have to deal with it, with this town that's been his only home feeling suddenly so empty and full of strangers.

"Yeah, I'd like that."

Louis smiles his first real smile in ages.

*

Louis kind of forgets about it mostly except for when Harry texts him randomly.

_niall has been playing teenage dream on repeat all week HELP_

_my lecturer's been talking about orgies for the last two hours idk_

_i can't sleep_

Louis doesn't know how to react to the last one, but he doesn't know how to react to a lot of things Harry says and does.

 _yorkshire tea_ , he sends.

_tried it, it never works_

Louis wonders if he's missing home, missing someone, missing some city he's never been to.

His phone pings again a couple seconds later.

_going for a walk_

Louis figures that's the end of it, turns his light off and tries to go to sleep himself.

Only about twenty minutes later, someone's throwing rocks at his window.

*

"Are you crazy?" he finally asks when he lets Harry in (after being scared half to death and praying they didn't wake up anyone else in his house, because his mother _will_ kill him).

"I didn't know where else to go," he says, eyes all wide and innocent, God damn him.

"It's the middle of the night," he says out of pure frustration.

Harry just shrugs.

"Take me somewhere," he says.

"Where?" Louis says, giving in because he can't do anything else now.

"I don't know. You pick."

*

He used to catch fish in this pond with the lads when he was a kid; then it became where they'd go skinny-dipping with girls when they were teenagers. Zayn used to drag him out here to pose for him sometimes, for course work for his Art A-Level, and maybe there ended up being more making out than drawing. There are lots of memories. All the people in them are gone now though. Except for him. He kind of expects it to not be there anymore, to just be a dry hole in the ground, maybe covered with grass. Of course, it's exactly the same. Just because all the memories are dead doesn't mean anything else is. Everything just carries on like they were never there in the first place.

The moon is bright enough for Louis to skip some rocks over the surface.

They sit by the shore afterwards.

"It's really pretty," Harry says. And it is; there are fireflies floating over the water, and crickets chirping all around them, and the sky is huge and alight with stars and the clouds swirling through the dark blue. It kind of feels like they're the only people alive for miles and miles. The only people awake on earth, so, so tiny under the starry sky, just two specks of dust in the universe.

They lie back on the grass looking upwards and their fingertips touch and they don't say anything and eventually the darkness parts and the sun comes up and sets the sky on fire. It's almost sad, watching the stars go. It's almost sad when they're not alone on the planet again.

Louis gets up and helps Harry to his feet. 

His mum will be up soon and off to work and he has to make breakfast and walk the girls to school.

*

He comes over on Sunday and Louis hasn't had a new friend over to his house since he was, like, twelve (not including Zayn, because that was different, and _confusing_ , but a good kind of confusing in the end, an exciting kind; Harry is - Harry's confusing too but not a new, thrilling kind of possibility, it's deeper and darker and it doesn't just take his breath away for a moment, it's like a heavy weight on his chest).

Jay asks him about school and his parents and the town he grew up in and he says just enough without giving away too much. Louis knows because he does the same thing all the time.

He's getting dessert when he hears laughter coming from the dining room and figures they've brought out the photo albums. 

"Why'd you stop wearing your glasses?" Harry asks regretfully when he goes back in.

"So I wouldn't get mistaken for a dirty hipster."

Harry just laughs, like it's the funniest joke he's ever heard.

They play Scrabble with the girls after and Harry makes up all kinds of dumb words that make them laugh so they let him win.

*

They're up in his room after, and the new Mumford & Sons is on, and Harry's looking at his posters, studying them as if they have secret encoded messages.

He sits down on Louis' tiny bed like he belongs there.

"You ever thought about trying it out yourself?" he says, gesturing to the walls.

Louis nods. "Yeah, I was in a band in high school. For a bit."

"Me too," Harry says, kind of sadly. "I - I wanted to go to London, try to make it. My mum said I was too young, had to go to uni first." He shrugs, like _So here I am_.

He doesn't sound too resentful though. Like, maybe he dreams of city lights and places far away every night, but he knows they'll always be there too. Always be there for him. 

Louis doesn't know how to dream so far. So far away or so far ahead.

 _And I'll walk slow, I'll walk slow, take my hand, help me on my way_ , plays in the background.

Maybe he's always been suffocating; Harry's just a reminder of that.

*

_october_

It becomes a routine after that. Louis stops by the bakery after work whenever he sees the light on. They have coffee and biscuits and sometimes they talk and sometimes they don't. Louis walks him back to his dorm afterwards. Sometimes Niall's there and challenges him to an epic FIFA battle and he ends up passing out on their floor until it's dawn and he has to be back home. Sometimes he and Harry just stay awake and listen to music or watch a movie, lying side-to-side in his tiny bed, just feeling each other breathe. It's weird, how much you miss that.

Harry looks at him strangely sometimes, and it feels like he's asking him all the questions he doesn't want to ask himself, doesn't want to answer.

He never says it out loud though. 

*

They go driving up into the hills one Saturday afternoon when it's windy and Louis almost gets them killed on the narrow, winding roads.

"Do you even have your license?" Harry asks.

"Well, not technically, but -"

And they both laugh hysterically.

It's kind of wonderful though; there are places where the trees form a canopy over the road, leaves falling onto the top of the car like confetti. They stop at a lookout spot where they can see the entire town sprawled beneath them.

Louis remembers the first time he ever came up here. And he could find his house, and his friends' houses, and the school, and the ice-cream shop and the comic book shop and it was like his entire world had been reduced to a dot on a map. 

He still kind of feels like that.

Harry takes his hand just then, like he knows everything without him having to say it.

*

Louis walks him up to his room, and he just hesitates at the door for a moment before turning around to look at Louis kind of morosely.

"Something wrong?"

"It's just - I keep waiting for you to kiss me and you never do." There's a tiny smile playing around the edges of his mouth now but he's looking down at his feet and not at Louis. He's probably blushing a bit too, and Louis doesn't know how someone can be so coy and so brave at the same time.

"I - maybe I'm just waiting to surprise you," he suggests.

"Oh, okay. Right."

"Yeah, well, I'll see you."

"Yeah."

Harry turns around again to unlock the door and he doesn't look back at Louis again, just steps inside and shuts it.

Louis doesn't leave for a while. He just paces in front the door for a couple minutes. He wonders if Harry's still standing just inside with his back against the door, if he's regretting saying it, if he's regretting not making the first move himself, if he's wondering if he's ruined something.

Maybe he'll decide to go after him and he'll open the door and find him still standing there. Maybe Louis will realise he's being an idiot and knock on the goddamned door.

Neither happens. Louis takes the stairs slowly.

*

Zayn calls him the next morning, and he hasn't heard his voice in a while so it's comforting. 

"I don't - I don't know if this is weird, but I just need to talk to someone about this," he bursts out.

"Come on, mate, you can tell me anything."

"Well, um, I met this guy."

And _oh_. He sounds nervous and embarrassed and knowing Zayn, he probably wants to smother himself right now so Louis refrains from making any of his usual jokes.

"Go on," he prods.

"He's a jock, Louis. A freaking _jock_. Yeah, I know. I _know_. I thought he was an idiot at first. But we got put together to do this play-writing assignment and he's so _nice_. Like, I'm not even sure if he's a real person. Maybe he's just too dumb to understand when I'm being snarky?"

"Mate, calm down. And speaking from experience, your snark is not at all subtle."

"Shut up. I totally thought you were an idiot when I first met you too, just saying."

"Arsehole."

"Wanker. Okay, so tell me, what the fuck do I do now?"

"Grab his face and make out with it? Sorry, man, I think you're going to have to be direct with this one if he's as clueless as you say."

"Ugh, why do I always go for the hot, dumb ones," Zayn laments.

" _Hey!_ "

"Sorry. Jesus. And you're sure this isn't weird, right?"

"Positive."

"Good. I'm glad. I mean it. I'm really glad. I don't know what I'd do with you, man." He lets out a laugh.

"You too," Louis says softly.

He doesn't know why he's keeping Harry a secret. Maybe he doesn't want Zayn to tell him all the things he already knows. All the reasons he shouldn't. 

*

Harry hasn't texted him all day and he has no idea what to do now. But the light is on, the light is on, and that's been an invitation up until now. Maybe things are okay. Maybe they can be okay.

"Hey," he says, sitting in his usual chair. And there's a cup of tea already in front of him.

"You can tell me, you know," Harry says without any preamble. "If there's someone else or you don't want to -"

"It's not that," Louis cuts him off. "There isn't anyone else. Well, there was. But he's gone. We ended it this summer. We're just friends."

"Okay, okay, that's cool. You just want to be friends then."

"Harry -"

"No, I get it. It's fine. Do you want biscuits or something? Yeah, I'm gonna - I'm gonna go get that."

He's gone before Louis can react at all. He spends way too much time in the kitchen, and Louis realises he's so done pretending. Harry's fragile, he knows that, even if he's good at faking otherwise. And he trusted Louis, trusted Louis to not lie to him.

Which is why as soon as the door opens, Louis's there to tug him in by the front of his t-shirt right into the deepest kiss he can manage. Harry's hands just flail for a second and then they find his waist and he clutches at him almost painfully. He tastes like the cinnamon he puts in his coffee and chocolate chip cookies (and of course, he'd been stuffing them while he was back there), and his hair smells like apricots and he's soft in all the right places.

"Surprise," he breathes out when they pull apart.

"I hate you," Harry says nudging his forehead with his own, smile so wide it shouldn't even be possible.

"Well, that's unfortunate," Louis says, content, lazy. "Because I like you. A lot. Like, really, really a lot. Like more than I've liked anyone in ages."

They just kiss for a while, learning the taste and the feel of each other. Harry's kind of intense when he gets into it. He bites down on his lip and makes these obscene noises and Louis is so utterly hopeless at this point.

"Want to come home with me?" he asks afterwards.

"Really?" Harry says, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't mean - I'm not going to try to fuck you with my mother and sisters there."

"Cool. Okay."

He helps Harry into his coat, wraps the scarf around his neck, holds on for a moment too long before he lets go, like he just wants to keep it, them in this moment, before they have to share it with the world.

*

They just lie in bed and kiss some more and Louis presses his lips to all the hidden tattoos he can see and touch now.

"I thought you weren't into them."

"I'm into _you_ ," he retorts.

Harry groans. "I should've known you would've been a cheesy fucker."

"Dude, you're the one who works in a _bakery_ ," he mutters.

"What?" Harry says, looking actually offended. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"I don't know," Louis says, rolling off of him and tucking himself against his side. He nips at the skin on his shoulder absently.

"How'd you get the job anyway?" he asks, because he's curious, always has been.

"My mum taught me to bake when I was little. I don't know, I always liked it. I think that I thought baked goods made people happy." His expression darkens a little as he goes on. "She used to make strawberry tarts all the time. The day my dad left, I came home from school…and the whole house smelled like strawberry tarts."

And Louis wants to know more, wants to know everything about this boy, even the hurty bits. Maybe that makes him selfish.

He continues without any prompting though.

"That's all I can remember about it for some stupid reason. She never did make any after that though."

Louis kisses his neck, then his mouth. Louis hates it, that anyone could hurt someone so beautiful and brave. But maybe everything that's beautiful is a little broken too.

"I don't want to hurt you," he whispers into his skin when he's asleep.

Maybe that's not what he should be worried about. He's never the one who leaves, after all.

He finds Harry's scarf under the bed after he's left. He tucks it into his drawer and doesn't think about it again.

*

"So, yeah," he says to Zayn the next morning. "There's this boy."

*

Harry tells him he has to come to some Halloween party some of Niall's friends are throwing. He has to fight the urge to roll his eyes and actually smile and nod. It's not like he hasn't been to parties at the university. When they were in high school, it was considered cool and edgy to sneak into all the best parties and try to hook up with uni girls. Now, he thinks he'd rather go trick-or-treating with his little sisters.

"We can go after though," Harry says when he remembers he promised to do just that and tells him.

"Fine," he finally submits.

Harry grins.

They'd met at a cute little café during both their lunch breaks and it feels so normal, like they could do this every week and it'll become their spot, like everything has all this new significance to it, everything they do and say, and maybe they'll have to decide quickly what exactly this is, and he'll have to tell his mother and random people he knows in passing will see them on the street holding hands and think, _Oh, they're dating now_ , and it's kind of a lot to handle all at once.

"Are we dating?" he says stupidly. "Is this a date?"

"I don't know?" Harry answers truthfully. "Does it matter? I mean, we're just hanging out like we always do. Is hanging out not hanging out if you've made out with the person you're hanging out with?"

And Harry's totally serious, of course, even when he's being absolutely ridiculous.

"What if you have feelings for the person you're hanging out with?" 

He pretends to think for a moment.

"It's still hanging out," he says, shrugging. "A date is just a stupid, made-up concept designed to put pressure on people where there shouldn't be."

"So, you're saying you don't want to date me?" Louis jokes.

"No, I'm saying I want to hang out with you and kiss you and do other things with you. And I don't want to think about it too much."

Louis wonders if you can be in love after a month. He wonders if you can love someone you barely know if you know their dreams and their fears and some of the things they love and how they look and breathe before they wake up in the morning. He wonders if someone can love you if they don't know the story of your life but they know how you play with your little sisters and help your mother wash the dishes and if they've sat in your childhood room and seen the detritus left behind from that life. 

In some ways, he knows more about Louis than he ever will of him, because he's here and he can soak it all up from the sidewalks and the air and the trees and the water. They all contain bits of him, bits of his life to collect.

He sits there and remembers that he took his first girlfriend to this same place when he was fourteen years old. Nothing's even really changed that much.

He already knows too much. It's hard to give away much more.

*

Harry holds Daisy's hand and walks in front of the rest of them on the pavement.

"I saw you kissing him before we left," Lottie pipes up as soon as he's out of earshot.

"What?"

"Don't deny it. He's really pretty. And mum likes him."

"She does?" Louis asks cautiously.

"Yeah, she said he's a nice boy."

"You didn't tell her, did you?"

"No, I'm not a snitch," she says huffily. "But you should tell her. She'll be happy."

"Okay."

*

The party is as boring as he'd expected it to be. Well, everyone else is having a good time. Louis's just not in the mood.

Harry finds him on the lawn outside the dorms.

"Do you really hate this place that much?" he says dropping down next to him. It's not judgmental though. Harry doesn't know how to be that.

"It's not here - not really; it's what it represents, I guess. Like, some stupid obstacle."

"Trust me, I get it. But you have to at least try to knock the obstacle down."

"I can't leave them now. And I can't just _stay_ here either. So where does that leave me?"

"Stuck," Harry says with a sigh.

"I used to dream about running away a lot. I actually did once too." He smiles, remembering it. "I got about half a mile. Then I remembered I promised Fizzy I'd take her to the park. So I went back. No one even realised I was gone."

"You'll make it further than half a mile, Louis," he says. "I promise."

"I don't even know if there's anything out there for me, is the really stupid thing."

"There is. You'll find it," he says, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, nuzzling into his neck.

*

_november_

Louis tells his mum the next day, and she just looks at him before her face breaks into a smile.

"I knew it."

"What? How?" He can't be that fucking obvious, can he?

"It's just - you're happier these days." She shrugs.

"Oh."

"He makes you happy. I can see it every time you're around him. And you deserve that."

Louis doesn't even know what to say to that.

She hugs him and maybe she's tearing up a little.

Maybe he is too.

*

"I think I love him, Zayn," he says so, so quietly.

"Oh, Louis," he says soothingly.

"What if I just fuck it up like I did with everyone before?"

"You won't. Because you didn't love anyone before."

"I - Zayn, you -"

"It's okay, Louis. We - we were different. It wasn't like this."

"Should it be so hard?" he asks, because he needs to know. Why loving feels like dying sometimes, why people destroy things they love, why love destroys everything sometimes.

"It's only hard when you make it," he says simply.

*

Finals are coming up soon and Harry's not around much. His shifts at the bakery are fewer now and he's actually spending time in the library amongst the strangers and holed up in his room writing papers. And it shouldn't be this hard, because he didn't know him two months ago and he was fine. Only he wasn't, not really. But this - this is like being granted a sip of water after years in the desert and then having it taken away again.

It shouldn't be so dramatic but he hasn't seen him in a week and even texts are becoming scarce and he's going kind of mental.

Only then it's 12am and his phone is buzzing.

_can't sleep, can't study, thinking about you_

Maybe he should've expected it but his heart still starts racing when he gets another a little while after.

_let me in_

He's barely inside before Louis's kissing him. 

"Missed you, missed you, missed you," he says between kisses.

They miraculously make it upstairs, still entangled, and fall in a heap on his bed.

Louis shoves Harry's shirt up and off of him in one quick motion. He presses kisses down his chest, pausing to nibble at his hipbone before unbuttoning and unzipping his trousers. He pulls them down along with his underwear. He takes him into his mouth and Harry gasps. It's been a while but he quickly finds his rhythm and Harry's making even more of those delicious noises and he doesn't want him to stop. He comes with a stutter of his hips and Louis swallows before pulling off.

He slides back up his body to kiss him. Harry responds eagerly, hands in his hair, tasting himself in his mouth.

He flips him over, mouth still on his, and gets a hand in his pants. Louis moans into his mouth as he starts stroking him. It only takes a couple strokes before he's coming. Harry kisses him one last time before rolling off him. 

He laughs. "We should get cleaned up."

 _I love you, I love you, I love you_ , he doesn't say.

"Yeah."

*

They go to the park and kick around a ball for a while and Harry's kind of hilariously terrible at it.

"I've never even seen anyone so bad," he says, trying not to laugh as the ball rolls right between his legs.

"Well, I can't be good at everything, you know," he says smirking.

And maybe Louis's been keeping a catalogue of the things he's bad at: anything that involves coordination (sports, dancing), telling jokes, sleeping on his own, talking sometimes (but they're both bad at that sometimes so it doesn't count).

And the things he's good at: kissing, singing along to the radio without realising he's doing it, cooking, being patient, making people fall in love with him.

*

Louis tells him afterwards.

"I fancied playing footie for a bit in my early teens. Like, I was good. But not good _enough_ , you know. It's just kind of fucking ridiculous to even think about now."

Harry just shakes his head, like he doesn't even know how to respond.

Some people are bad at things and they don't feel like faults at all, they're just tiny pieces of what makes them who they are. Other people fall short over and over and it's what defines them, not ever being enough.

(Louis's bad at: letting go, being alone with his thoughts, looking into the unknown, taking what he wants.

And he's good at: taking care of people, dreamless sleep, remembering too well, getting too attached too quickly.)

*

They sit by the pond in daylight this time and it's too calm and clear and eerily empty now. Like nothing lives there anymore; it's kind of a sad thought.

"You never told me about how you and Zayn met," Harry says, kind of out of the blue. He's never really reacted when Louis brought him up before, didn't ask any questions, just seemed to accept it as something important but entirely in the past. Harry definitely isn't the jealous type. He's just curious.

"We'd never really hung out until sixth form," Louis says. "He was - you know, the quiet type, head always in a book or doodling something. And I was kind of a complete douchebag back then. I don't even know what he saw in me, really. We were polar opposites. I guess that's just how those things happen sometimes. But we realised we were more alike than we thought, like two halves of the same person almost. We're still kind of like that."

"Why didn't it work?" Harry asks.

"I think we wanted different things eventually. And we realised we're much better as friends."

"What did he want?"

"I don't know. What does _anyone_ want? What do _you_ want?" he says, absently pulling blades of grass out of the ground.

"I just want you to be honest with me. That's all."

Louis wouldn't even know how to start. That's always been the problem. He doesn't know how to say what he wants, he doesn't know how to tell people to stay, he doesn't know how to be so selfish. Maybe that makes him even more selfish in the end though.

He wanted Zayn to fix him and he couldn't do that; he just wants Harry to love him but he can't tell him why.

*

Harry practically moves into his bedroom during reading week and his clothes are strewn all over the floor and half his CD collection is scattered across Louis' desk and there are stacks of books everywhere and he keeps finding stray post-its stuck to the bottom of his shoes and waking up to scraps of notes stuck to his face. (It's strange; his dorm room is never this messy. It's almost like he's trying to claim something.) And his bed smells like Harry all the time now, like coffee and cinnamon and fabric softener. Only now Harry kind of smells like Louis' soap too, which is almost wrong somehow. 

When he's gone, he's going to leave so many pieces behind. More than Louis can ever hope to remove. It's funny how people can make this space for themselves in your life without you even noticing. And sometimes they can be gone just as easily.

Other times, they linger on and on like algae clinging to the surface of water, ink marks you can't scrub off for days and days, broken things collecting dust at the bottom of a drawer.

*

He comes home from work one night to find Harry sitting on his bed surrounded by photographs.

"Hey. I didn't mean to pry. I just dropped a pen and they were in a box under the bed -"

"It's fine," Louis says, dropping down next to him, looking at some of them too, almost like he's never seen them before.

And it is fine, really. He just hasn't thought about them in a long while. It doesn't even feel like his life anymore. 

There are pictures of him with Stan and the lads doing stupid things and some with Hannah and even more with Zayn (and those are good, happy memories, really, but they're just that now - memories). Then there are a bunch of him as Danny Zuko and that was probably the happiest he'd ever been at school, only it kind of hurts now too. He never thought he'd be one of those people who'd be so nostalgic for high school, for youth, but then again he was never too keen on growing up either.

"You didn't tell me you were in _Grease_. Is that it, then? Acting's your thing?" He sounds like he's been collecting clues all this time, trying to fit the puzzle pieces together.

"I don't know. Maybe for a while. I thought about being a drama teacher too." He shrugs, feeling the glossy pictures slip through his fingers.

Harry just looks at him like he's working something out and then nods. "Yeah, that fits."

*

_december_

Louis walks him to his exams and hangs around and they go to the uni coffee shop afterwards and Louis doesn't even complain about the hipsters and it feels like the end of something is coming even if they don't ever say it. Louis just wants to be around him all the time but it's like he's pulling away, like he's afraid of something, afraid of it hurting too much when he has to go.

Only then they're at the train station (and so many of his things are still on Louis' bedroom floor; he's left fragments of his life for Louis to find along the edges of his own) and Harry just kisses his cheek and he's getting on board and he's going, going, gone, without even looking back.

Louis walks home with his hands in his pockets.

*

Harry's gone but Zayn is here. Zayn's here. And he talks more than before. But maybe that's because Louis's supposed to be the one that talks and talks, only he can't right now. And Zayn has all these new experiences, and new mates, and he'd begrudge him that, he would, but he's trying to let people go. 

He keeps getting texts every couple minutes that make him smile like an idiot too.

"So, how's it going with Liam then?"

"It's - going. Somewhere. At least I hope so. We hung out a few times after we handed in that assignment, nothing major, just coffee or movies with friends. He said he'd miss me while I was home though." Zayn blushes and tries to hide it unsuccessfully.

Louis can't help but smile a little. At least one of them's not too fucked-up to have a normal relationship.

*

He spends his birthday with Zayn getting drunk on eggnog and missing Harry like a limb. (And he'd called, but he'd sounded weird and distant and didn't talk much. And God, he always knew that he'd fucking suck at long-distance relationships. Hearing his voice doesn't make anything better, just makes it ache even more.)

"It shouldn't be like this, I shouldn't need him this much, this fucking sucks," he slurs when his tongue is finally loose enough.

"I know, I know," Zayn says sympathetically.

"Why am I even drinking this?" he says, a few moments later. "I fucking _hate_ cinnamon."

And Zayn can't help but laugh at that, but Louis knows he gets it.

*

He finds his present later, after he's gone.

It's a drawing, a memory, Louis standing in his favourite lookout spot, hair blowing in the wind, eyes squinted against the sun but smile warm and bright.

Looking in the mirror now, it seems like a stranger.

He rolls it up and puts it in the box that's still lying on the floor, shoves it back under his bed.

He passes out quickly and that's one thing he's grateful for.

*

He sneaks out early, before the girls are up and yelling about presents and probably trying to break down his door.

Zayn's smoking outside on the porch swing.

Louis joins him, like he has a hundred times before.

"Sorry about last night," he starts, after a few moments of Zayn looking across at him. 

"It's fine," he dismisses.

"I love it - your drawing, I mean. And I missed you," he says all in a rush. They've never been weird about it; it just ended because Zayn was leaving and he wasn't and it made sense and it didn't feel like it was supposed to anymore, maybe they'd gotten too used to each other, maybe they got to know each other too well, maybe they were always friends before lovers and they wanted to keep that, because it was more important.

"I know," Zayn says, because he always knows everything. Louis can't hide things from him. (Maybe this is why they didn't work out.) "I missed you too."

"Happy Christmas, Zayn," he says softly.

"You too," Zayn says, smiling, exhaling smoke.

*

He goes home and they go through the whole opening presents ritual and he plays with all their new, cool stuff and then he helps his mum cook Christmas dinner (even if he's pretty rubbish at it), and he almost forgets for a while.

Only there's a new message when he checks his phone:

"Hey, sorry I couldn't talk longer yesterday. It's kind of crazy here. I hope your birthday was great. I have your present. I wish I could give it you now. I wish... I wish I could see your face. I don't think this being apart thing is working." He laughs under his breath. "I miss you, a lot, way too much. Have a happy Christmas, Lou."

He wants to call back, wants to so bad, but he doesn't know what to say, he never does. He just wants him here, in his bed, in his house, where he can fit their bodies together and run his fingers through his hair and kiss him, and kiss him, and kiss him, until he can convince himself he won't leave again.

*

He calls back after dinner and he sounds actually worried and Louis hates himself for a moment.

"Hey, are we okay? I know I was out of it when we talked. Just - this whole thing is kind of shit. My mum keeps asking me if I'm okay. I don't even know what to tell her."

"What _did_ you tell her?"

"That - that I'm tired. That it's strange being home."

"What about - ?" And fuck, Louis isn't this person. Louis isn't this clingy, ridiculous person he's turned into overnight.

"I didn't tell her. But it's not - it's not about you. It's - she'll just dismiss it as a fling and be all judgy and I hate that."

"So - you're not going to tell her."

"Yeah, I will," he says. "But maybe I want her to meet you first." He tries to pass it off as casual but Louis knows he's nervous about it, like he's been thinking about it a lot.

"You want me to meet your mum?" he says, incredulous.

"Yeah. Sure. It's not a big deal. I've met yours." Louis can practically hear his eye-roll over the phone.

"Yeah, but that was - different."

"How's it different?" and he's definitely kind of laughing at him now.

"Never mind. I just - so, does that mean we're boyfriends now?"

He laughs even more. "I don't know. Maybe."

"I miss you," Louis tells him, voice low and private.

Louis hears him breathe out. 

"I miss you too."

*

It's a little better after that. He hangs out with Zayn and it starts snowing on the 30th so he spends basically the whole day playing outside with the girls.

He actually sleeps that night, without any need for alcohol, and the emptiness of the bed, the familiar smells of someone else, doesn't keep him awake for once.

*

It's around ten when he wakes up and discovers his phone's been buzzing for about fifteen minutes. 

_open the door_

*

Louis just takes two seconds to register the fact that he's actually right there, on his porch, wrapped up in a coat and scarf, with snowflakes in his hair and pink, pink cheeks. 

Pink cheeks he can't resist leaning forward to kiss, one at a time. Harry just giggles and mutters something about Louis going all posh on him while he was away. In lieu of retorting, he leans back in to kiss his chapped lips this time, pulling him in by his scarf. Harry responds eagerly, throwing his arms around him and kissing him breathless.

"You're my favourite part of winter," he says, when they eventually stop, still holding him close, burying his nose into his hair. He smells like cold air and pine cones, but maybe Harry always smells like the seasons to him.

"That doesn't even make sense," Harry says, voice muffled into his neck.

"I don't care."

*

They lie head to toe on the tiny bed and Louis wraps his fingers around Harry's ankle, presses a kiss to his calf.

"My mum's probably pissed," Harry's saying. "I just left a note and got on a train."

"She's probably worried. She probably missed you," Louis tells him.

Harry sighs. "Yeah, I'll call her in a bit. Let her know I'm okay."

"Why'd you come?" he asks, because Harry's supposed to be better at this than him, at getting on trains without looking back.

"Because... because it's easy to make myself forget. To try not to miss you so much. It's just self-preservation, right? But I didn't want to have to do that anymore."

And Harry's never been so vulnerable. He's never been able to see the cracks so clearly. How torn in two he is, has always been. It wasn't easy to leave, Louis knows. Not at the end of summer or at 4am this morning. It never was, never will be. He reaches for Harry's hand and squeezes.

"We're totally boyfriends," Louis says, and Harry just laughs into a pillow.

*

Harry gets out of bed a couple hours later to rummage through his bag for something. Louis props his head up on his elbow, curiously looks on. 

"I got this for you," he says, sitting down cross-legged on the bed, presenting a wrapped present to him. "Happy Birthday-slash-Christmas."

He opens the box and there's a Polaroid camera in it. 

"I know it's old-fashioned, but somehow the memories are more solid when you can touch them," Harry says, like he knows, like he understands Louis and his box full of forgotten faces and drawers full of old trinkets.

"You're such a hipster," Louis says, shaking his head, but his smile is involuntary.

"Shut up," Harry says, but he's blushing, like he put a lot of thought into it. He snaps a picture of him trying to hide his face.

"I have something for you too," he says, and he puts down the camera, reaches into the drawer of his bedside table.

It's just wrapped in white tissue paper and he places it in Harry's hand.

Harry unwraps it slowly.

It's a silver paper plane necklace, simple but beautiful. Harry just stares at it.

"I just saw it and thought about you," Louis admits.

Harry just pulls it over his head, careful not to entangle the chain in his hair. The pendant rests right over his heart.

"I love it," he says simply. Then he's crawling on top of Louis to kiss him thoroughly. He feels the cool metal against his chest, and it's like everything's finally right.

*

They take the girls up to their spot to watch the fireworks at midnight. They try to sneak a snog but it doesn't really work. The twins wrinkle up their noses and Fizzy just says, "Eww," disdainfully before turning away. Lottie grins like it's all part of her evil plan or something. 

Harry just smiles contently, rests his chin on Louis' shoulder and gets his arm under his jacket, wrapping it around his waist. Louis kind of never, ever wants to leave that exact spot.

*

The girls pass out one by one in the backseat when they're driving home. Harry's looking across at him like he doesn't want to take his eyes off him, like he's afraid he'll disappear if he does. He intertwines their fingers between the seats and Louis isn't sure how it happened, how they got to this place, but he doesn't ever want to let it go.

*

Harry doesn't let go of his hand, just leads him upstairs, slowly takes all his layers off and then his own and slides them both under the covers after turning off the lights. Louis rests his head on Harry's chest and Harry presses his mouth to his forehead. Louis listens to his heartbeat even out and slow down and it only takes him a few seconds after he knows Harry's out to fall into a peaceful sleep.

*

He wakes up to a faceful of curls, and an elbow poking into his ribs (because apparently his limbs are just as unruly when he's unconscious). It's warm, the two of them wrapped up so close together, their legs entangled under the blankets, and Harry's just wearing those tiny black briefs of his and it's all skin and heat and of course he's already half-hard. 

Harry wakes up like he's coming alive again, like he isn't sure what planet he's on or what year it is. It's kind of adorable, like watching some kind of gigantic baby animal seeing the world for the first time.

He shifts so he's mostly on top of Louis, pecks his lips and says, "Morning," sleepily.

Louis's definitely hard now. And Harry can obviously feel it from the way he smiles and grinds down lazily onto his hips. Harry silences the sound he makes with his mouth, continues rutting against him. He comes embarrassingly quickly, Harry biting down on his lip.

"Happy New Year," he whispers when he pulls away.

"Hey, do you want -" Louis asks, still trying to regain his breath.

"No, it's fine. Later. I'm going to get coffee. Want some?" He doesn't even wait for the response before he rolls off of Louis and off the bed. He picks up a t-shirt off the floor and pulls it over his head as he goes out the door.

He just rolls his eyes because of course, only Harry would choose coffee over sex right now.

*

He totally gets him back though, when he's had two cups in him and he's totally alert and Louis's between his legs and sucking him off excruciatingly slowly and he's begging, "Fuck, Louis, just - please - _please_ -" And he never gets loud, just dissolves into lower, longer drawls, and it's kind of indescribably hot, so Louis puts him out of his misery before they both actually die.

"You're terrible," Harry says after when he's pressed up against him, face buried in his neck.

"You're really hot when you beg," Louis says, smug.

Harry smacks him in the face with a pillow.

*

_january_

They go to the ice-rink, just the two of them, and Harry rolls his eyes whenever he says it but it's _totally_ a date. Harry's kind of super bad at that too, so Louis just ends up holding his gloved hand in his own and pulling him along gently. 

It feels like he hasn't left his side at all in three days and he doesn't want to. (Only he'd called his mum and he'd promised he'd be home in a week, so they're counting down again. They just have to make the most of it now though.)

Louis makes them hot chocolate after and Harry kisses him while marshmallows melt in his mouth and he never wants this feeling to end.

*

He meets Zayn the night before he's supposed to leave and they're in a crowded, tiny club and they're both a little tipsy and Harry's handsy and giggly when he's drunk, apparently. He feels like he should like that, but it's kind of sad too for some reason.

"So, what do you think?" he asks Zayn when he's finally tired of clinging on to Louis and disappears into the crowd.

"He seems nice," Zayn says but his expression is thoughtful, which means he's not saying everything.

"Just say it," Louis urges, bracing himself for the worst.

"I just -" He sighs exasperatedly. "I think you need to be careful."

"What - what does that _mean_?"

"I mean you need to make sure you're not rushing into anything, that he's on the same page as you."

"And you think he isn't?"

"I don't - I don't know him. Only you can know that, really." It sounds way more ominous than it should.

Zayn takes a sip of his drink and Louis kind of hates everything a lot for a moment.

*

"Can we talk?" he says the next morning, and they're both lying in bed and staring at the ceiling and Harry has to catch his train in less than an hour and they don't want to move just yet, like if they don't maybe the world will stay still for a few more seconds.

"Yeah, okay," Harry says and his voice is so tiny.

"I know you don't like labels and stuff. I don't either, not really. But I just need to know if this is a fling or -"

"I told my mum," Harry cuts him off. "About you, I mean."

"Oh, you did?" Louis says and there's this weird lump in his throat suddenly.

"Yeah, I told her that - that I missed you so much it felt like my skin was on fire. I asked her if she knew what that was like, and she said yes, she said it still happens sometimes."

Louis just grabs his hand, holds on tight.

"She cried a lot. I think it was less about - you know, and more about me. Like, she just realised that I was grown-up, that I was gone."

Louis kind of wonders how she's still breathing, knowing this. She must be stronger than he ever could be. Like Harry is, maybe, because he knows when to let go.

"You should go back, say goodbye properly," Louis says against his shoulder.

Harry nods slowly and then they gradually start to move again.

*

It's easier this time (or maybe it isn't, not really). He doesn't stop looking back though, not until Louis is out of sight.

*

Two weeks pass and the girls go back to school and Louis's just concentrating on work and helping his mum out and hanging out with Zayn and it feels like he's back to his old routine, like he could just slip back into this past life and pretend it never happened. (Only there are Polaroids all over his bedroom and some are stuck to the walls and lost in the sheets and they're just pieces of a bigger picture: a bright green eye, the corner of a mouth, a stray curl, half of a butterfly tattoo; Louis can't let himself put them back together, not just yet.)

Zayn leaves on Friday and Harry's due back on Sunday. He spends Saturday imagining all kinds of things he's never dared think about. Future-things. Life-things. Harry-things.

Harry comes back and finds all the photos neatly pinned to the corkboard above his desk and all the clothes he left there are freshly laundered and his smell is completely gone from the sheets.

It doesn't take long for it to return though.

*

His course load is lighter this semester (and that's a sign maybe; of what, Louis doesn't know yet) and he takes up more shifts at the bakery. He spends nearly all his free time with Louis at the record store or going for walks to the pond or to the shops or playing with the girls after school. He only spends about half the nights at Louis' though, because Niall's apparently been complaining that his roommate is basically a ghost these days. 

He mostly studies in Louis' bedroom now but every now and then, they'll let themselves in the bakery, lured by the prospect of free coffee and leftover pastry. They'll put music on and it's great having the place to themselves. The tiled floor of the kitchen is great for sock-sliding, they discover, and the counters are pretty decent for making out too.

*

_february_

Louis writes him a fucking _song_ for his birthday and he hasn't picked up his guitar in years and he's rusty as hell but he just has to do it. He kind of sucks at writing lyrics but it's not about the words, not really, it's just that they have this connection through music that he hopes is strong enough to express what he's feeling without having to say it out loud. Because words are so ephemeral; they just last for a second and then they're gone, into thin air. Maybe this can last a little longer, seep into his bones, into some place deep inside him where it can endure and be safe from the slow decay of time.

*

"No one's ever written a song for me," he says, and it's a bit in awe.

"Have you ever written one for someone?" Louis asks.

"No, not directly. I wrote a poem for a girl when I was thirteen though. It was awful." He grins.

"I'm not sure I did much better."

"No," Harry tells him. "It was honest. And real. That's what matters."

He pulls him into his arms, whispers into his hair, " _Thank you_ ," like he really, really means it.

*

Louis doesn't even do Valentine's Day, ever, and Harry just rolls his eyes and mutters about commercialism, but he surprises him anyway (and Niall is in on it) and actually makes him dinner (he hopes it's edible at least) and there are candles all over the room (and one almost sets the carpet on fire) and they use Harry's bed as a makeshift table (and they do spill wine on the sheets) but it's perfect. It's perfectly them.

 _Milk & Black Spiders_ is on repeat because Harry's obsessed with it and Louis can't even be bothered to complain anymore. 

_You, my compass and my sea._

"We should've done this at your house," Harry says afterwards, giggling.

"No privacy," Louis answers, wrapping his arms around Harry's waist, kissing the tender spot just below his ear.

"How'd you get rid of Niall anyway?" he asks, but he sounds very distracted.

"Told him I'd take him out for pint sometime."

Harry laughs properly now. "Good thing he's a man of simple tastes."

"Mm," Louis agrees, moving further down his chest now to the wings of one of his birds, and Harry walks backwards to the bed and eases himself onto it to allow him better access. Harry's hands are in his hair now and it's gentle and possessive at the same time.

It's just a low vibration against his stomach when he says it. It just comes out, because he's not being careful anymore, or because it's time, or he just can't hold it in right at that moment.

Only then Harry's not touching him anymore and he's sitting up a little and just kind of staring at him, wide-eyed. Louis pulls back reluctantly, his legs folded under him, to look back at him.

"Harry, I -"

But then his expression changes and it's the happiest Louis has ever seen him.

"I love you. I _do_ , Louis. I used to think they were just words that didn't mean anything. Because how could you love someone and hurt them so bad, how could you _do_ that? But I know that I'll never hurt you."

His eyes are resolved, as he reaches out and touches his hand to Louis' cheek lightly. Like he's forcing him to look at him, to believe him. Louis just gives a tiny nod of his head. When he kisses him, he knows he's smiling into it.

And he's so fragile and strong and Louis's kind of terrified suddenly, because he has him now, has his heart, and it's all he's ever wanted, but he almost doesn't know what to do with it.

 _I don't want to hurt you_ , he'd told him once. But it was never a promise; he's not good with promises, so he doesn't make them.

"I love you," he tells him again, whispers it into his skin. It's all he can give him. He hopes it's enough.

*

He comes back home to find Harry basically exactly where he left him. He's not wearing a shirt, sitting on the floor next to Louis' bed, cross-legged, guitar in his hands, brow furrowing from focus.

"Hey," Louis says, joining him, fingers finding the warm skin at the small of his back almost of their own will. "Did you even go to class today?"

Harry shrugs.

Louis shakes his head in mock-disappointment.

"What will your poor mother say?" he says, but he's grinning. 

Harry puts down the guitar then though, out of frustration or something else, and he hasn't even looked at Louis properly yet.

His hand moves up to his neck, thumb tracing the underside of his jaw gently.

"Hey, you okay?" he asks quietly.

"Yeah, I just - I feel like I should be so inspired right now, but it's just - not translating." He sighs.

Louis pulls him closer, presses a kiss to his temple. "You can't force it. It'll come in its own time. I know it will."

Harry's still weirdly tense in his arms though, like maybe he's wondering if he can't wait much longer, if his time is almost up.

"I guess," he says finally.

"Hey, so I was thinking -"

Harry groans. "Is this another surprise? I'm so tired of surprises, Louis." 

And that's so not like him, but maybe this will actually make him feel better.

"I was passing by the tattoo parlour today and..."

"Really?" he says, and he's looking up at him expectantly now, intrigued.

"Yeah, I mean, I think I finally have a reason."

He's full-on beaming now, eyes retaining their wild glint.

"What are you going to get? Do you know?" he asks eagerly.

"It's - it's a surprise," he says, smirking, way too pleased with himself.

"I really fucking hate you sometimes."

*

Louis doesn't even let him go inside with him, tells him to wait at the frozen yogurt place down the street.

He's just moodily playing with his fruit toppings when Louis walks in and sits at the table.

Harry just raises an eyebrow. He's pretty sure he's gonna throw a blueberry at him so he rests his arm on the table, carefully peels the bandage back for him to see.

It's a small, perfect paper plane.

He can feel the soft, fond way Harry's looking at him without even meeting his eyes.

Louis replaces the bandage but Harry intertwines their fingers together before he can move it again. 

"That's not all," he says, twisting his arm around to show him the other one, a compass, its arrow always pointing to home.

"Every plane needs a direction," he says simply.

"And where's it pointing?"

"To you," he says seriously. And he kind of expects Harry to call him a sap, but he doesn't.

Instead he leans over to kiss him and he tastes like vanilla and blueberries and under that, something familiar and permanent, something he'll never quite be able to get rid of.

*

_march_

March is kind of crazy because Harry has midterms and papers and he's writing songs in his tiny bits of spare time and the girls suddenly have a million things happening, recitals and swim meets and footie matches, and it's all kind of exhausting. Whenever Harry's around, he's too tired to do anything and whenever he has a brief period of free time, Harry has another deadline or he's caught up in the most important part of his creative process.

It's frustrating, but it is what it is; they can't spend every waking moment together, it doesn't work like that. Louis used to think he was avoiding adulthood for as long as he could, by staying here, doing all the same things he's been doing his whole life, but this feels a hell of a lot like it. He kind of thought it would be easier, really, like it was in the beginning. For a while.

He thinks Harry maybe thought the same too. Like, it should be easy because it's so important. Because there's nothing else, just you and a dream, you and a notebook, you and a guitar, you and a melody inside your head, you and a promise to your mother, you and a boy who you love.

Harry finally plays him a song as the sun is coming up on a Sunday morning.

It's sad and hopeful and feels like spring, like the sun coming out after years of being covered. Because winter hides things, keeps them safe and preserved under ice. It's harder, emerging into the real world, into the light.

"It's gorgeous, Harry," he tells him earnestly.

"I was wondering -" And he's twisting his hands together and looking unsure and God, he's been under so much pressure lately, and it's self-inflicted, and Louis hates it. Louis hates that he's scared he can't do it all anymore, because he should never have to be scared that's he not capable of something. "If you wanted to come home with me for Easter."

"Oh," he says, because he isn't really sure what he was expecting.

"Yeah, I mean, I think we both need a break from - things. I just - I feel like you're here but I never really get to see you anymore."

And that's both their faults, really, because Harry gets weird and distant when he's writing and Louis wants to give him the space he needs and there's school and work and a thousand other stupid things and it's all too much and it's easy, so easy to let the world pull you apart without even noticing that it has.

He doesn't want that to happen to them. He doesn't want that to _ever_ happen to them.

"Only if you want to, though, I mean -" he adds quickly, and Louis realises he's been quiet a moment too long.

He smiles, shakes his head. "No, it's fine. I'd love to. Honest."

"Yeah?" Harry says, a tentative smile forming, and he looks more content than he has in a long while, still tired and a bit on edge but better - much better.

It's probably why the words just start spilling out.

"Yeah, I was kind of dreading you leaving again, really. I know it's probably unfair, but I just - Everything's so empty when you're not here. Like, even emptier than usual."

"I don't know how you can feel so empty when there's this whole world inside you." And he looks so, so sad now. Louis doesn't want him to be, not ever, not even on his behalf, especially not then.

"I don't get to live in it though. That's the problem."

"I'm glad I can," Harry confesses.

*

Zayn calls and he's complaining about deadlines and shit while Louis just _mmhmm_ 's in what he hopes is a sympathetic tone.

"What about Liam though?" he finally asks.

"Oh, yeah, we totally shagged the day I got back," he says bluntly.

"What? And you didn't think your best friend deserved to know this?"

"Been busy, mate. And it's not like you tell me everything about _your_ relationship." Louis knows he has his bitch-face on now.

"That's totally different," Louis says without thinking.

"How is it different?"

"It's...Harry." And that's it, really, that means more than he could ever explain with other words.

Zayn's quiet for a bit, and then he says, "Yeah, man," softly. "I get it."

"Do you really though? I mean, I don't even know if _I_ get it."

"Get what exactly?" And thank God Zayn can be ridiculously patient when he needs him to be.

"I don't know. Why he's here. Why me."

"You're such a knob, Louis Tomlinson. He's in love with you. I met him for, like, an hour and it's so obvious. You could probably see it from space."

"That's, like, exactly the opposite of what you said to me before." Sometimes, though, he's just really unhelpful.

"I - Louis, just because he loves you doesn't mean he'll stay forever. It doesn't work like that." It sounds like an apology, like some admission of his own guilt.

"Sometimes I wish it did," he says truthfully.

Zayn tells him he has to go, Liam's picking him up in a bit, tells him he has to listen to this album, he's sending him a song now, _hang on_ , and he's almost worse than Harry, really, he should keep them far away from each other.

*

_These words are all we have._

"Can I talk to you?"

He looks up from where he's highlighting something.

"About...?"

"I don't know. I just - feel like we don't talk enough." And he's feeling kind of stupid now.

"That's - that's not necessarily a bad thing though."

"Isn't it?"

Harry shakes his head.

"Can I show you something?"

"Okay."

He takes it out of his bag, and it's a journal with a brown, leather cover and Louis's always assumed that it was for his songs, that it was private. And yeah, there are are snippets of lyrics here and there but there are other things too - lines from poems or his favourite songs, pictures of cool places cut out of travel magazines, lists of bands he wants to see and foods he wants to try and names of clubs and restaurants and museums and shops.

It's kind of like a scrapbook, only of the future. Louis thinks he's probably never shown it to anyone before him.

Louis has his box full of memories and Harry has his book full of dreams. It's pretty fitting.

He feels like he knows him better now for some reason.

"Maybe it's easier to show you what's inside of me than saying it out loud," he says after a long silence.

And he'll take it. He'll take any piece he can get.

*

The night they leave he notices it lying open on top of his bag.

The last page just has one lyric written on it, ink fresh. And he's always attracted to such sad, sad songs but this is an optimistic line from one of them, at least.

_And if you're in love, then you are the lucky one._

It's kind of like a reminder, he supposes.

*

_april_

The first thing he notices is that the town is so much brighter than his own. Or maybe Louis just associates so much darkness with it, and this, this is Harry's birthplace, his home, and that makes it warmer and fuller and _more_ somehow.

Their house is really pretty and there's a porch running all the way around it and in the back, there are steps leading down to a perfect, little garden. There's a tree with a swing and Louis can picture a tiny Harry spending his afternoons out here.

He kind of already loves it. He takes pictures on his phone to send to his mum. He takes some others with his (Harry's) camera to keep.

*

The kitchen is big and clean and well-lit and it's not hard to see why Harry loved cooking with his mum so much. She seems absolutely ecstatic to actually have people to cook for again and Harry helps while Louis mostly stays out of the way (for all of their sakes).

She talks a lot anyway, like she's been dying to get it all out, like she's been waiting on this for a long time. Harry just interjects with "mm"s of agreement or cringes of embarrassment where appropriate. Louis's happy to just listen, to learn all the things he's been slowly finding out for himself, or things he probably never would have. It's not all important, it's all insignificant details and random memories, but they're all pieces of him, they all help create the map of discovery.

Harry's setting the table, and she sits down at the breakfast bar with Louis, just looks serious before she starts talking.

"He's not as strong as he looks. Take care of him." It's like a plea, it's like a dying wish.

"Yes," he says. "Yes." Because how can you ever deny a woman who's giving her child to you? How can you ever think about breaking that promise?

*

Harry's room looks like it hasn't been touched since he last left it, like it's been preserved in time. It's strange, it's too clean and cold and bare. So starkly different to Louis' which is overflowing with memories.

"It's weird," he says. "You've practically been living in my room for months and this is the first time I'm seeing yours."

Harry just gives him a small smile before sitting on the bed with something like an air of resignation.

Louis joins him, their legs pressed together.

"I remember not being able to sleep in here for years at first," he says. "I'd go crawl into my mum's bed or Gemma's every night."

And it could just be a casual anecdote, but it means more than that for him. He's not good at owning things, at holding on for too long.

"So, how many girls did you bring up here?" Louis teases.

"Not a lot, if you can believe it," he says, smiling properly now. "I think I've always slept better in other people's beds."

And it's kind of sad but not at the same time. When everywhere's your home, nowhere really is.

Louis wants to know things, wants to know when this small-town boy, like himself, conjured all these fantastical visions for himself, when he knew he wanted the world and everything it contained, how he could dream so, so far outside the confines of his own mind and his own life.

And he can't find the answers here himself, so he'll have to ask. And he's kind of terrified to do so.

He starts somewhere simpler.

"Tell me about when you started writing songs."

*

(He was thirteen and her name was Sarah-Jane and she had long blond curls and pale, pale, blue eyes and he was kind of in love with the redness of her cheeks and her bitten nails and the way she looked down at her feet when she talked. He didn't speak two words to her, just stared a lot, until one day he was brave enough to ask her to go get ice-cream with him.

And they went up the hill and to the dairy farm and they didn't hold hands and she didn't talk much but he kissed her when she had ice-cream on her tongue and that was both of their first kiss and it was cold and sweet and she kissed him back and then they blushed as they walked back to town.

He wrote her a poem and put it in her locker the next day.

Apparently her friends got ahold of it and made fun of her so much that she cried.

And it was over before it began.

Harry didn't get it, why saying what you felt, being honest, was so reviled. He put it in a song instead. He can't remember the words now, can hum a bit of the chorus, but that's all. He didn't play it for anyone to hear.)

*

They sit on the steps overlooking the garden as the sun sets, and Louis is pretty sure this is his place, like the pond is Louis'.

"We should go get ice-cream tomorrow," he says, like it's an afterthought from earlier.

"Okay," Louis says.

"I keep thinking of ways I could surprise you, but I'm failing."

"You surprise me all the time," Louis tells him truthfully.

"Really?" he says, cocking an eyebrow.

"Just looking at you is a surprise. Like, I expect you to be one thing but you're never just that."

"I don't even know what you're saying," and he's frustrated, and that's kind of adorable.

"You don't need to," he says, smiling at him fondly.

And miles and miles and miles from the place he left, Louis finally feels at home.

*

They hold hands and walk up the hill. They end up having an ice-cream fight, with bits melting in Harry's hair and him licking it off the side of Louis' neck while telling him all the things he's going to do to him when they're alone ("Your mum's going to be there." "So what? You don't care when it's your family." "That's totally different." "Hypocrite.").

They end up grocery-shopping and arguing over 2% versus skimmed milk and deviating pretty greatly from the list Anne had actually given to them. It's domestic and disgusting and Louis is so in love that he doesn't even care.

Harry tells them both to get out of his kitchen when they get back and they comply because he looks like a grumpy cat when he's mad and he may actually resort to scratching. He bakes actual homemade bread and it's kind of the best thing Louis's ever tasted. (He'll never tell his mum that though.)

They watch old _Law & Order_ reruns and Harry kisses his mum goodnight before they go to bed.

*

They Skype with the girls in the morning and they all confirm that the house is much more peaceful without them around and that they're not missed at all. Louis just sticks his tongue out at them because he's a five-year-old (Harry rolls his eyes at him from where he's pretending to be engrossed in his phone), and tells them about all the fun he's been having without them.

Jay chases them all off eventually and she asks him, a bit too soberly, how he's been doing.

"I'm great. We're - we're really great."

She smiles but there's something hesitant in her eyes. 

Harry's not even eavesdropping now.

"Well, I can't wait until you're back. Both of you." The last part is almost in a whisper.

"Me too," he says, because he means it, kind of, he does, really. He wants her to not look at him like that, like he's leaving her. It's not - never will be that.

Harry just wordlessly comes over to him after and wraps his arms around him.

*

The last day before they go back, they just sit around the house and eat junk food and listen to Phoenix. It's kind of unsettling how quiet and empty the house feels. (It's only now that he truly appreciates how his own is never silent, even if he doesn't always notice the constant background noise of Fizzy talking on the phone and the twins dancing to boybands and Lottie arguing with his mum about boys or grades or whatever.) Louis can't help thinking about Harry's dad and what makes someone want to leave a big, beautiful house behind, leave a home to become a shell, leave a family to huddle together for warmth. He thinks about Harry's watch and time stopping in this house years and years ago. Harry's weird when he's here. It's like all the life is being slowly drained out of him. Maybe it used to be different a long while ago. It's not too hard to see why he always wants to get away.

_My love, my love, my love is cruel._

Harry decides he needs some air and Louis gives him ten minutes before he follows him into the backyard.

He's just sitting under the (his) tree. 

"I keep dreaming about beaches," he says. "And sunlight."

Louis wants to tell him it'll pass, this restlessness, but maybe it won't. Maybe it won't until he's far, far away from it.

"It'll be summer soon," is what he says instead.

"Yeah, yeah." He sounds like he's holding on to that thought with everything he has.

"Do you have plans yet?"

"I don't know. America maybe. Just driving around, seeing everything."

He doesn't say, _You could come with me._ He's already said too much, asked too much.

Louis just nods distractedly, like he's not hearing him at all.

*

When they get back home, Louis feels like he's lost something. 

It's back to real life, and work and school and Harry's buried under papers and projects and his own stuff and Louis misses him, he does, only it's like a ghost of the real feeling this time. Like missing him like this, in this temporary kind of way, is already turning into a memory.

*

There's a map in his book and there's a path in red ink stretching across a country that's across the ocean from here. Maybe the ocean is already in his mind though. Maybe it's always been there, a giant chasm between who he is and what he wants. Maybe he dreams about it, maybe he wakes up from the dead of sleep, shaking and sweating, and clutching at thin air.

*

_may_

He doesn't even talk about his finals, just goes off to write them and comes back and crawls into Louis' bed. He clings on tighter than usual, and Louis just strokes his hair and lets him.

He eventually says it, muffled into his shoulder. 

"I wish you would come with me."

He almost says it, the _yes_ is on his tongue, and he wonders what it would be if it came out. If it'd be a lie, a broken promise, a word of comfort, a blissful dream. 

Louis wants to say yes to everything Harry ever asks him. He wants it to be always true. He wants him to never ask any question he can't say yes to, and this is the first time he's come close. Louis suspects it won't be the last. Something's ending, something's changing, they can both feel it. He wonders when he leaves this time if he'll ever come back. Or if he'll be the same even if he does. Maybe he'll leave something behind, something he can't quite regain.

"I wish," he says. "I wish too."

A long time passes and Louis's sure he's asleep but then he shifts away from him a bit, eyes opening.

"You wanted to talk, so okay, I'll talk." And this is dangerous suddenly. So dangerous.

He takes a deep breath before continuing. "Remember when you invited me to dinner that first time and I kind of didn't even know why?"

"Mmhmm."

"I was kind of really, really happy though and I didn't know why then too. Then I - I met your family and saw how you were with them. It sounds stupid but maybe that was when I fell in love with you. But it was scary, afterwards, because I didn't want to leave you behind and I didn't want you to ever have to leave _them_ behind, and I just - Maybe I'm really fucking selfish."

"You're not," Louis assures him, still kind of recovering from hearing everything, finally.

"Aren't I?" he asks softly.

Louis doesn't say anything then, just presses them closer together.

*

His last exam is in two days and he's playing Connect Four in the living room with Daisy. After he's let her win a sufficient number of times and she skips off to her room giggling, Louis sits down on the carpet next to him where he's playing with the tiny discs.

"Have you been studying at all?" he asks quietly.

"I'm _tired_ , Louis," is all he says and it's tense.

"Yeah, but see, I told your mum I'd look out for you..." And it's meant to be light, it's meant to be harmless.

"God, it doesn't really matter, Louis," he bursts out.

"What? How could it not matter?"

"Because it doesn't. Because it makes no difference to our future."

"Our - our future?"

Harry just nods, kind of helplessly, staring down at his hands.

"And what -" Louis continues. "What do you want that to be?" It's cautious, quiet.

Harry takes a deep breath, like he's making a decision, before he starts speaking.

"I just - I see us living in a tiny flat in some big city. And there are guitars and stuff everywhere and posters on the walls and - and we play old records while you grade papers or whatever drama teachers do and I write songs, and it's great, we're happy. And maybe there are rats and maybe the paint is cracking and the floorboards creak and the roof leaks sometimes but it's ours, you know? It's _home_." And it's all these terrible, overwhelming things he's never said before, because he didn't have to, because they were in his eyes, these images, this future.

"Harry, it's not going to happen - not now, not -"

"You said you couldn't stay. You _said_ that," he accuses.

"I meant I couldn't stay forever."

"No one _ever_ stays forever, Louis. It doesn't mean anything."

"What about us? What do we mean?" he asks, suddenly so apprehensive.

"I shouldn't even _be_ here, Louis," he says. "I chose the farthest place from home I could. It was just luck, chance... This town is so small. But you're not. I think I would've left a long time ago if you weren't here." And that's it, his secret; the reason for his insomnia and his restless midnight walks and ending up at Louis' house instead of never stopping, like Louis was the centre of gravity that kept him from just floating away.

"But you won't now, right?" He already knows the answer as he says it.

"I can't promise you that, okay? I can't promise I won't leave."

"So what are we doing?"

"I can't change, Louis. You know that." And it means, _I can't stay, I can't stop, not now, I can't be the person you want me to be just because you love me._

"Yeah, I read it," he says. "But I thought you didn't like things that were too permanent." And he wants that to hurt, he wants to hurt him for making him feel these things in the first place, for making him want to be so selfish with him, for crawling under his skin and finding all the left behind scars there, for making so many more of his own.

"I'm not sorry," he says, shaking his head, but his eyes are watery. "I can't be sorry."

"I don't want you to be," Louis says soberly. "You shouldn't have to be." He means it, he does. He wants Harry to be happy and maybe that means flying around the world and getting on trains without knowing his destination and living out of suitcases and playing his guitar on street corners for cash. Louis wishes he could be like that too, wishes he could put that much faith in himself. But he can't, and he's never been able to. And that's why he's stuck here. It's not anyone's fault. It's not his mum's or sisters', not Harry's, definitely not his dad's, wherever he is.

"Louis, please, just listen. I have three more years at uni. I'll be here. I'll be right here. After that, I don't know. But who ever knows, right? Maybe we can make it work - Maybe -"

And he believes it, he believes they can do it, that they can just keep doing what they've been doing and have a life and he can ignore all those feelings, all those impulses, that he won't just leave again, on a whim, in the middle of the night. Louis doesn't know how to trust as well as he does though.

"Harry, I'm sorry, but I can't. I can't spend three years with you knowing there's an expiry date to _us_. I can't live like that. I just _can't_."

Harry's just quiet for a long time, staring at him like he's not seeing him, like he's looking right through him. Seeing someone else maybe, some other time when someone else walked away without looking back.

"I - I didn't think it would end like this," he says softly.

"We never do, do we?" 

Louis wraps his arms around him, and he feels so small now, smaller than he's ever been, and Louis's reminded of how young he is, really. He feels the moisture of Harry's tears against his cheek and tells himself that it's for the best. It's the greatest lie he's ever had to make himself believe.

*

He's gone, and his stuff is still all over Louis' room, and he's gone, and Louis can't wait, can't wait until it sinks in, can't wait until it's real, so he finds a box and just starts shoving everything he can find into it. It becomes almost mechanical after a while, sorting out his CDs and books and socks and beanies and Louis isn't sure whose t-shirts are whose anymore (they all smell the same now too) and he rips the pictures off the wall without looking at them and the camera is perched upon a stack of magazines on his desk and he just looks at it for a moment before he drops it in the box on top of everything else and closes it.

He rips the sheets off the bed and just leaves them in a pile on the floor (he'll wash them in the morning) and he just lies down like that and tries to block out the screaming static in his brain.

*

There are no calls or texts or anything for a week. And then he finds a package on his front porch and he knows it's from him, knows he must've dropped it off on his way to the train station. It's a CD, the new The National album and when he opens the liner notes, he sees Harry's circled song titles and underlined lyrics, some of them very boldly, and he knows this is his only way of communicating now. They've always been better at this. Talking too much maybe doesn't ever end well. They both know that now.

He plays it all week at the shop and ends up getting reamed out by his boss for ignoring customers even more than usual. He can't really find it in himself to care too much.

It's underlined three times in red, red ink:

_If I stay here, trouble will find me. If I stay here, I'll never leave._

*

_june_

On the first of June, he gets a letter postmarked from California. There's a Polaroid with it: a sandy beach, clear blue waters.

_I wanted to just put this in my journal but it didn't feel right. I feel like I should share this with someone._

And it makes him feel a bit off-balance, that he's so far away, literally an entire ocean and landmass away. He doesn't know if it's supposed to be easier this way. Doesn't know if that was Harry's intention. But if it was, he wouldn't have sent him this letter, wouldn't have taken a picture with the camera he'd given him and put it in the envelope.

They're on different sides of the world now but there's still no forgetting. 

Louis puts the letter in his box and doesn't write back or text or call or think about what he'd say at all. He doesn't think that's what Harry wants anyway.

*

Zayn's back and he doesn't ask much, just casually brings it up.

"He's in California," Louis states plainly.

Zayn breathes out. "Is he gonna come back next semester, do you think?"

"I don't know. Probably. He promised his mum he'd finish school at least." Louis shrugs.

"Jesus, this is a fucking mess."

"You told me..." Louis says softly. "You told me this would happen."

"Louis, I didn't mean _this_. I told you to be careful he didn't leave you behind. I didn't mean that you should let him _go_."

"I didn't have a choice," he says, shaking his head.

"Yes, you did," Zayn insists. "But you - you always do this. You did this with _me_."

And Louis looks up at him in surprise then, because he thought they had an unspoken agreement to never talk about this again, to never talk about the night Zayn told him he was leaving and he'd yelled at him to _just fucking go and don't come back. Like everyone else._

"That wasn't -" he starts, desperate. "You know it wasn't -" Wasn't him, wasn't meant for Zayn, wasn't true. Zayn had understood then, that he was frustrated and scared and coming to terms with everything he'd lost. But something had changed that day, something in Louis, something he couldn't ever seem to put right again.

"Yeah, I know," Zayn says gently. "But what's your excuse now?"

"I just - I can't do _that_. I don't belong in his world."

"But you knew it," Zayn insists. "You knew what he was from the beginning and you still - Why'd you _do_ that, Louis?"

"Because maybe I thought I _could_ be that person," Louis bursts out, finally. "The person he could run away with and build a life with and maybe it _would_ last forever. But I'm still just a fucking coward."

"You're not, Louis, you're _not_ ," Zayn says soothingly. "You just need someone to teach you otherwise."

"He's gone, Zayn, he's fucking _gone_."

"Maybe he's not. Not just yet. I wasn't, right?"

*

The second letter comes from Las Vegas and the picture is of the lights of the Strip.

_It's so noisy here. I didn't think I'd miss the English countryside._

Louis doesn't even know what to make of that. He kind of wonders what he dreams about now, if he's dreaming about the same things Louis does, miles and miles away on another continent.

Or if he's not, if he's with someone else, somebody just as bright and beautiful as he is, and he's trying to not think about it anymore.

*

It's been three weeks and his mum hasn't asked a single question, though of course she knows something's up, something's wrong, because Harry just left without saying goodbye and Louis hasn't said one thing about him since.

"What happened?" she asks, standing in the doorway of his room and he's just reading the words on the page over and over like its meaning will become clearer eventually. 

He just rests it face down on the pillow, sits up to look at her.

"He - he wanted me to leave. With him. Leave here."

"Oh, Louis. You know you'll have to eventually, right? I won't ever forgive myself if you don't."

"I just - I just don't want to be like _him_."

He hears her take a deep breath, almost like it's painful. "You're not," she assures him. "You never will be."

*

He thinks about just not opening them anymore, throwing them in the trash, sending them back. He can't stop himself though. It's the same kind of obsession he'd felt for Harry first, kind of manic and inexplicable and intense. He rips the envelope open.

It's just a stretch of highway, at sunset.

_I like being on the road though. It's peaceful out here._

Louis wants to know what he's looking for, if it's clarity or freedom or something else. Maybe this is as cathartic for him as it is for Louis. Maybe that's the point, really. Or maybe he's just running away to avoid it, to prove he's better off this way, they're better off without each other. Louis doesn't think he believes that either though.

It's why letters keep coming in the mail and he keeps opening them.

*

_july_

It should be weird, having Liam here, but it's not. He's actually really sweet (although he was also really shy at first; it was kind of adorable, Louis has to admit), and they get along well and end up talking excitedly for ages about Batman and The Avengers like they're all kids again. Of course, Zayn would end with a jock who's also a total geek.

Zayn stares at him a lot too, like he's the fucking sun or something, like he almost can't believe he's real, and that'd be embarrassing for him if Louis wasn't so sure that he probably used to look at Harry just like that too.

It could be easy, he thinks, to forget. To forget it ever happened. Because so much of what happened, what they were, was ensconced in their own little world that maybe it could be easy to just pretend that world doesn't exist anymore. Had never existed.

It's just another summer, an ordinary summer, and he's with his best friend and his boyfriend and maybe that could be all there is, all there ever was.

Only then another letter comes and it all falls to pieces again.

*

"Are you sure this is good for you?" Zayn asks out of the blue and he knows exactly what he's talking about because Zayn knows everything, sees everything, even if he doesn't bring it up until he thinks it's the right time.

"I don't know. Maybe it'll be better to just forget him, but I don't want to. And I don't think he wants to either."

"Maybe you should tell him to stop," he says cautiously. "For, like, closure."

"Zayn, I can't - I can't just go from that, from him, to having nothing. That - that isn't good for me. You know that better than anyone."

He just nods stiffly.

"I just hope it doesn't end up hurting you both even more in the long run."

Louis maybe wants it to, wants it to hurt, just so he'll know it was real.

*

The take the twins swimming and Louis's sitting on the edge of the pool when Liam joins him. Zayn's sitting on the other side having a splash fight with Phoebe (eventually she just pulls him into the pool and he starts yelling that he's drowning, in the _shallow_ end, like the drama queen that he is).

"So, you and Zayn, huh?" he says trying to be casual. And Liam's not usually this forthright but Louis knew it would come up eventually. It's not a big deal, anyway. Not really.

"Yeah, he was my first real relationship, I think. We never really thought about it while it was happening but maybe it wasn't the best idea in the first place."

"He cares about you a lot," Liam says after a moment. "Worries about you all the time."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. He told me about Harry. Well, sort of..."

"It's...complicated," is all Louis says.

"We always think it is while we're in it, you know? It's only when you get some distance that you figure out that it's actually really simple." And maybe Liam definitely is way smarter than he looks. He gets it; he gets what Zayn sees.

"Zayn's lucky to have you," he tells him.

"I think we're both lucky to have _him_."

*

The next one is Times Square.

And the note just says: _can't shine as bright as you._

And Harry _hates_ that song, but he knows that Louis loves it. It's a joke, a really stupid joke, and it's almost funny. He almost starts laughing right there on his porch and can't stop.

Instead, he walks to Zayn's house, letter still clutched in his hand, and finds Zayn almost exactly where he'd found him on Christmas morning, a lifetime ago.

"Is he gone yet?" he asks when he sits down beside him. 

"He always was," Zayn tells him, and that's what he does, what he always has done; he tells him the truth, the harsh, painful truths that he never wants to hear.

"Okay," he says. "Okay."

*

_august_

The last letter is stuck to the top of a package he finds on his front porch. And Louis knows he's back home just by looking at it.

There's a picture of his backyard, exactly as Louis remembers it.

_I think I'm remembering how to be happy again._

He opens the box, knows what it is instantly, as the aroma hits his nostrils. Strawberries. Pastry. He just shuts it.

He sits down on the porch and cries for the first time.

*

He leaves him a message.

"Maybe we can start over, be friends, I don't know. Maybe there's no going back from something like this. I hope I see you in September. Bye, Harry."

*

And maybe there is no starting over, but they both have things to sort out and growing-up to do before they could ever have a real chance at this. (Because they never really did the first time.) Maybe it's a long-shot, a fantasy, but it's something to hold on to. Something to guide him because he can't just keep doing the same thing over and over. He'll eventually go insane or end up completely trapped or alone for good. He deserves better from himself, he knows. And Harry does, and Zayn and his mother. He needs to just do it, and chances of failing be damned. He needs to be brave for once, be selfish, be strong enough.

He can manage it, he knows, going to school, helping take care of the girls, working part-time. It's simple in concept. Thinking about anything afterwards is too complicated so he doesn't, not just yet.

He digs a creased envelope out of the bottom of his sock drawer. In it is the first and only sum of money his dad ever left him and a percentage of every paycheck he's ever gotten. He sits on the bed, takes the bills out, counts them like he has a thousand times before.

Maybe it's almost time now.

*

The heat fades away and maybe it takes a part of Louis with it. Some bitterness and some stagnancy and some desperation.

Maybe he embraces the coming fall this time.

And people talk about summer love but it's summer and he's gone and it's summer and Louis told him to go and it's summer and they're both broken. And summer ends and he's still gone.

Maybe he hated fall once, but he'll hate summer now.

And he'll remember winter.

*

_september_

He doesn't know what he expects. He passes the bakery to and from work and he glances inside but the light's not on, there's no one inside; it's all just a memory now, again. He glances up (hopeful, or maybe just kind of terrified) every time the bell rings and someone steps into the record shop. It's never him. 

Maybe he's really gone. Gone from this place and gone from him. Or maybe he's just staying away for now.

Either way, he has to know.

It's Saturday night when he knocks on the dorm room door. Niall answers.

"Hey, mate," he says, and he looks slightly surprised, and Louis doesn't know what Harry told him, what he knows, if he told him anything at all.

"Hey, man, how was your summer?"

"Sick, dude. I went to Spain. The girls were _hot_ ," he says, grinning with all his teeth showing. And okay, he really fucking missed Niall.

"Cool. So, um, Harry -"

"He's not here," he says quickly, his expression not betraying much.

"Oh, did he move out or -"

Niall just shakes his head apologetically and Louis _knows_. Finally. It's a thousand times worse than he'd thought it would be.

"He didn't come back. He just said he was going to London, starting a band."

"Oh."

"Yeah, fucking left me here too, the wanker," he says, faking indignation.

Louis can't help but smile a little at that.

"Hey, I'm sorry about -" he says, serious now. "I mean, I don't really know what happened between you two, but I know you really cared about him."

"Yeah," Louis says softly.

"Maybe it'll work out, you know, in the future?"

"Yeah," he says, again, but distractedly this time. "Hey, listen, I should - I should go. It was good to see you."

"Yeah, you too, mate," Niall says, but he's already turning away.

He takes the stairs two at a time, tries to get as far away as fast as possible. Like Harry did, like Harry did. The first time. And then now.

And Louis realises that they've both broken promises to Harry's mum now.

*

He just steps out into the quad, feeling dazed, like he can't quite find his balance. Because he's thought about it for months, had that vision of Harry doing all the things he'd talked about, doing all those things without him, and now it's real. He's actually gone. For good. And he feels like it's going to crush him, this hopelessness, this weight of loss and its inevitability. 

And he can't let it, he can't. He needs to put it aside. He needs to be strong and move on and accept. He needs to be all the things he pretends to be so well. He can't break. Not now. Because Harry thought he could be better than that, Harry believed in him. 

It's because of this that his feet take him to the administration building before he can stop.

He wonders if people can tell, how scared and lost he is now, how he's trying his hardest not to let his entire body shake or have an actual breakdown.

He goes right up to the receptionist. It's hard to breathe, let alone speak, but he has to get the words out. It feels like the difference between life and death.

"Hey, hi, I was wondering if I could get some information about the drama programme."

She smiles at him. "Give me a moment. I'll see who's available to speak to you."

He nods, sits down in the waiting area, and gradually starts breathing normally again.

*

_epilogue - december (three years later)_

Zayn practically comes flying into the record store.

"You have to see this," he says impatiently, coming round behind the counter where Louis's sitting with his feet up and about five seconds away from dozing off. Midday on Tuesday really isn't the greatest time for business.

"What is it?" he asks.

Zayn shoves his iPhone under his nose, and then a video starts playing. It's kind of shaky and out of focus, sound crackly, obviously recorded with a smartphone in the middle of a crowd. Louis instantly knows exactly which band it is though. His feet quickly come down from the counter and he sits up with a jerk, watching intently.

The noise and screaming gradually fade out as the song ends and then Harry's speaking. And yeah, he's watched interviews and stuff on YouTube, he's checked up on him, not obsessively or anything, but he's been watching him, watching his band's rise to the top. It's only a matter of time, now, before they're huge. Before they're everywhere and Louis has to get accustomed to that little ache in his heart whenever he unexpectedly comes across an article or TV appearance or when his songs are on the radio. The ache he already feels way too often.

"This is a new one," he starts. There are wild cheers. "It's about someone I met a while ago who didn't think he was enough to make people stay." He looks sad, even if he's blurry and distant; Louis can tell because he knows him, he knows him still. "And maybe I validated that for him, and I'm sorry about that. So this is for you."

And he starts singing, and it's simple, it's just his voice and the piano, and it's everything. Because Louis's never known how to describe their relationship. Sometimes it feels like it wasn't real, like that year never happened at all, like it's a half-forgotten story someone told him once. But at the same time he remembers all of it, he remembers it in scents and sounds and flashes and sensations. Every time he closes his eyes and thinks about it, he sees it all behind his lids. It's never anything complete; just an intense image or detail or colour. And it's too much and it's comfort and it's home and it's soft and bright and unbearable and everything all at once. It kind of seems like Harry feels the same way too.

But the song, it's complete. Louis wonders how many nights he spent trying to put all the pieces together. All these fragments that make no sense out of context, that just bury themselves under the surface and hurt and hurt.

Harry's scarf is still in his drawer and it's one of those fragments.

He just leaves Zayn staring at him dumbstruck and runs out of the store and back home.

*

He touches it for the first time since Harry left it there. Wraps it around his fingers, feeling the threads of soft wool. Brings it to his nose.

It smells like cinnamon and autumn and Harry's cologne. Or maybe he's just imagining it.

Maybe he's not. They're all pieces too.

This is another: his number is still on his phone.

It rings five times, and he's just about to hang up when,

"Hello?"

Louis breathes for the first time since the song started playing.

"Hey, this is - This is -" His throat is so dry suddenly.

"Louis?" he asks, in a whisper.

"Yeah. Yeah." He feels like he's about to cry. Out of relief, out of missing him so much, so much more than he even knew.

"Did you - did you hear it?" Harry sounds equally unsteady.

"Yeah, I heard it. Harry - it's beautiful. It's so beautiful."

"We were - Louis, _we_ were beautiful. Why'd you let me go, Louis?"

"I don't know. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." He's pretty sure they're both speaking through tears now.

"I didn't - I didn't know if you'd hear it." He sounds like he's been so afraid, like he's been terrified. Terrified he'd have moved on or not cared anymore or not have felt the exact same things. And it's so stupid, so, so stupid. Louis's been so fucking stupid.

"Of course I would. Of course. But why _now_?"

"It took me three years to write it, Louis. I thought I'd be over you when I was done writing it, and then I never wanted to finish." He laughs kind of madly and Louis just loves him so much, loves every bit of him more than he ever thought he could love anything.

So, he says it.

"I love you so much."

"I wrote a song for you and played it in front of twenty-thousand people, Louis."

"Yeah, yeah, you did."

"You're still my favourite part of winter," he says, and they both know what that means.

"I want to see you so bad," Louis confesses.

"I'll come to you," Harry says simply.

*

He still smells like apricots. That's the first thing that hits him.

The second is that he still fits perfectly in his arms, like he doesn't have to relearn that.

Maybe they'll have to relearn the rest, but that's enough for now.

*

The roof doesn't leak like Harry had imagined, and the flat isn't that small either - it's pretty massive, actually. Louis totally pays his half of the rent though. Harry may be a big rockstar now, but he gets it, he gets why it's important. He sends as much as he can back to his mum. He visits every other weekend as long as it's possible. He's recently gotten cast in an actual play and they'll come to see him when it opens in the summer. Harry tells him how proud he is of him over and over again. His kids think it's amazing too, which is probably the best part. Louis loves the thrill of acting on stage but he knows now that he was born to teach, and he'll never leave it.

He really loves living in the city too. It moves so fast and there is always so much noise and colour and activity. It's like never being alone. Even when Harry's on tour. And he flies out whenever school's on break but there are still lots of nights that he has to go home to an empty flat, an empty bed. Zayn and Liam don't live too far away now, but he doesn't want to impose too much on them. He's made new friends, of course, and they're all so cool and smart and interesting that he still feels a bit out of place among them sometimes. But he can always sleep at night though, because although the sheets are cold and the pillows don't smell like Harry's hair anymore, he just listens to the sounds of the city through the window and it's like Louis can feel him out there somewhere, breathing, missing him too. Can feel him and know that he's always going to come back. That wherever Louis is is the centre of his world, irrevocably pulling him back towards it.

And the more he thinks about it, the more he understands that it had to happen. Just like he had to let Harry go, Harry had to realise that Louis was always his home.

Harry asks him sometimes, "Do you miss it?" And he misses his family, of course, and he's nostalgic for his childhood home, but he doesn't really miss his old life, doesn't miss the quiet and the hollowness of the town, doesn't miss the years without Harry, doesn't miss the uncertainty and the aimlessness, doesn't miss feeling so useless and angry and conflicted. 

"No," he replies, honestly. "I only know how to miss you."

*

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. [_Constant Conversations_ \- Passion Pit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBLuWKnKIn0)  
>  2\. [_Settle_ \- Two Door Cinema Club](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1QdrBBinnk)  
>  3\. [_Lovers' Eyes_ \- Mumford  & Sons](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWNq89joPrI)  
> 4\. [_Milk & Black Spiders_ \- Foals](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L325JJ9MFxQ)  
> 5\. [_Youth_ \- Daughter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEpMj-tqixs)  
>  6\. [_Overjoyed_ \- Bastille](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fK3fVJtFTh0)  
>  7\. [_Chloroform_ \- Phoenix](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc5VCu0ECSI)  
>  8\. [_Sea of Love_ \- The National](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIWmRbHDhGw)


End file.
